Best Of 2014: ‘The Big Screen Edition’

6. Big Hero 6

As one of the funniest movies of the year, Big Hero 6 is like its character Baymax: Ballooned, and bursting at the seams. We are given a touching tale of loss that eventually leads to many instances of head-splitting laughter, but we never forget the importance of the more serious moments. We are handed a team of living action figures that kick ass and fulfill every comic cliche (on purpose, of course), but we can see what these peoples lives are all about. Big Hero 6 is a fully fledged comic movie that colours in every space it is supposed to, but then it will continue to draw extra pieces to the bigger picture. You’ll have a typical villain, but his power is something truly creative. You’ll see action happening, but maybe not in a way you’d expect. We’ve seen a new team try to get off the ground, but the road there may not have been this hilarious. Big Hero 6 is a common tale told incredibly well, and it’ll make even the biggest sticks in the mud want to start acting like super heros with powers. I’ll be damned if you don’t laugh even once at Baymax’s shenanigans, too.

5. Godzilla

Gojira is a force of nature and director, Gareth Edwards understands that and treats him just like one. Therefore you get to witness the events playing out in the film just like a natural catastrophe, in televisions sets, in second and third hand accounts of the events that are taking place but are rarely there in your face for the majority of this 140 minutes long spectacle. Edwards brings his Indie credentials and sensibilities into it and sparingly uses the Kaijus and the overall action in this movie which leaves the audience asking for more. This will become quite frustrating if you’re of the impatient kind and came expecting a standard summer blockbuster fare. This is one movie that, I can finally say, that just gets it, it gets the genre, it gets the long illustrious history, the political bleakness that goes along with this character and while acknowledging that, creates, mind the pun, a monster of its own. I do not remember getting as many goosebumps in the theaters, as I did while watching this movie. I’ve been a fan of this genre for a very long time and it is immensely gratifying that those sentiments are respected and visualised especially with the tiny nods like the filmmakers actually finding out a way to write: Godzilla- King of Monsters without making it cheesy.